Four Lives Lost to Gunfire in a string of weekend shootings; police say 1 person found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot
DENVER (AP) — It was a bloody weekend in the Denver suburb of Commerce City, where four men were killed and a woman was hospitalised with gunshot wounds. Police were later located dead from a self-inflicted gunshot and considered a person of interest in one of the shootings, according to authorities reports Sunday.
The violence over the weekend wasn’t contained to Commerce City. A fatal shooting and three others wounded in separate incidents in Aurora, another suburb, marked part of the weekend’s violence. In Denver, one person was killed and six others injured in a spate of shootings and stabbings.
“Incredibly violent” is how Joanna Small, a spokeswoman for the Commerce City Police Department, described this weekend for the fast-growing community of about 70,000 residents located just northeast of Denver near the airport. “We average maybe five or six homicides a year,” she said. “Now we’re talking four homicides and one person in critical condition within just 39 hours. The fact that these crimes are unrelated adds another layer of confusion.”
Data on the motives that led to the shootings were not released.
Commerce City in Crisis: Four Lives Lost to Gunfire
The first incident took place Friday evening. Two people were shot inside the parking lot of a 7-Eleven convenience store in Commerce City. The male died, and the female is reportedly in critical condition. After the shooting, officers tried to contact a man seen driving a truck involved in the incident, but he fled and was later found dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The third one occurred on a Saturday night in the parking lot of a public park with a pool located in Commerce City. A suspect was taken into custody, but no other information on that was provided.
Police responded to calls made to them a report of gunshots that were detected by a Commerce City gunshot monitoring system. When officers arrived, they discovered a stolen vehicle containing three individuals. They fled in the vehicle but not before crashing the car into another one.
One of them was identified as male, who was found with gunshot wounds and was confirmed dead; two others—one the presumed driver and the other, a passenger—were both injured and apprehended. Later on their return there, they found a second male victim lying shot dead in a nearby yard. The victims and most of the other involved people in this case are thought to have been juveniles.
Small verified against the backdrop of investigations that there was no known link between the shootings at the convenience store, the park, and the residential area.
A man was shot to death in the parking lot of an Aurora nightclub around 2 in the morning. The man has not been identified. A second victim, a 34-year-old man, had been shot numerous times but did manage to get himself to the hospital and is expected to survive. No one has been arrested in connection with this shooting.
Another shooting in an Aurora housing complex has left a man hospitalised, with life-threatening injuries. Another man involved was stabbed but is expected to recover.
Read more latest news HERE
Visit our page on Youtube
